4 ms·

> Did you know him personally, or know someone who knew him personally, or is there some other reason beyond "you profoundly disagreed with him" that would lea

by jbapple 11y ago

> Did you know him personally, or know someone who knew him personally, or is there some other reason beyond "you profoundly disagreed with him" that would lead you to calling him a "terrible person"? Is there anyone you would call a terrible person? "No" is an OK answer here. Are any of them people you did not know? Again, "no" is an OK answer here. I'm not the poster you're responding to, and I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's not constructive to call someone a "terrible person", but if we are to ever call people terrible, it seems like there are some public policy actions that might be sufficiently cruel or immoral to justify calling someone a public figure who sought and used extreme power for extreme evil a "terrible person" even without having first-hand knowledge of that person's day-to-day life. Or we could limit our condemnation to their actions and advocacy, not their whole person.

tptacek 11y ago
Yes, there are people I think are terrible. Yes, some of them are people I don't know. Would I say it on the day their death was announced? Tougher question. Candidly: if I felt like most of the people calling Scalia a "terrible person" were well acquainted with his work, beyond sound bites like "opposed marriage equality" or "thought we should shoot condemned convicts first and then hear their appeals", I wouldn't chide. But it seems like the more cut-and-dry an opinion you get about Scalia, the less well-informed and helpful it turns out to be.
- orbitur 11y ago
  Being so detached from humanity and so attached to his principles that he was willing to let someone die when he had the power to decide, that alone makes him a terrible person. I'm not going to get into my other issues with him because I don't have the time right now, but even if I were completely ignorant of the other terrible things he's said both in his writing and speeches, he's still a terrible person for that statement alone.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    To what statement are you referring?
- lawnchair_larry 11y ago
  Hah, you realize that last bit is a fancy way of saying you're being contrarian I hope.
- dalke 11y ago
  "there are people I think are terrible" Yes, your own history say you think "49% of [laywers] are terrible" and 'The most useful shorthand is "all recruiters are terrible"', believe 'The TSA is obviously terrible' and say the US supported a 'terrible Pakastani dictator'. Here's a cut-and-dry piece by Richard A. Posner titled "The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia". Some of the choice quotes are: "OMITTING CONTRARY evidence turns out to be Scalia and Garner’s favorite rhetorical device", "Scalia and Garner are capable of reveling in absurdity", and "most professional historians reject the historical analysis in Scalia’s opinion". For one of many given examples of incoherence, while Scalia says he is a textual originalist, "the eighteenth-century concept of freedom of speech was much narrower than the modern concept, and burning cloth is not a modern technological innovation", so why did he vote "to hold a federal statute forbidding the burning of the American flag unconstitutional"? As Posner writes, "an understanding of free speech that embraces flag burning is exceedingly unoriginalist. It is the product of freewheeling Supreme Court decisions within the last century." Here's an op-ed by Erwin Chemerinsky titled "Justice Scalia: Why he's a bad influence" which starts "Justice Antonin Scalia is setting a terrible example for young lawyers. Ignore, for now, his jurisprudence, his famously strict originalism; it's his tone that's the problem." Other parts include "Such mockery does not amount to a legal argument; it's nothing more than an attack on the author's writing technique. A litigator who compared an opponent's brief to a fortune cookie likely would be, and should be, sanctioned by the court." and "Scalia's browbeating is childish, even vain; like a harshly negative book critic, he revels in his own turns of phrase. And his attitude, just like his legal theory, affects the profession as a whole." I feel more well-informed by both pieces.

by jbapple 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

Yes, there are people I think are terrible. Yes, some of them are people I don't know. Would I say it on the day their death was announced? Tougher question. Candidly: if I felt like most of the people calling Scalia a "terrible person" were well acquainted with his work, beyond sound bites like "opposed marriage equality" or "thought we should shoot condemned convicts first and then hear their appeals", I wouldn't chide. But it seems like the more cut-and-dry an opinion you get about Scalia, the less well-informed and helpful it turns out to be.

orbitur 11y ago
Being so detached from humanity and so attached to his principles that he was willing to let someone die when he had the power to decide, that alone makes him a terrible person. I'm not going to get into my other issues with him because I don't have the time right now, but even if I were completely ignorant of the other terrible things he's said both in his writing and speeches, he's still a terrible person for that statement alone.
- tptacek 11y ago
  To what statement are you referring?
lawnchair_larry 11y ago
Hah, you realize that last bit is a fancy way of saying you're being contrarian I hope.
dalke 11y ago
"there are people I think are terrible" Yes, your own history say you think "49% of [laywers] are terrible" and 'The most useful shorthand is "all recruiters are terrible"', believe 'The TSA is obviously terrible' and say the US supported a 'terrible Pakastani dictator'. Here's a cut-and-dry piece by Richard A. Posner titled "The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia". Some of the choice quotes are: "OMITTING CONTRARY evidence turns out to be Scalia and Garner’s favorite rhetorical device", "Scalia and Garner are capable of reveling in absurdity", and "most professional historians reject the historical analysis in Scalia’s opinion". For one of many given examples of incoherence, while Scalia says he is a textual originalist, "the eighteenth-century concept of freedom of speech was much narrower than the modern concept, and burning cloth is not a modern technological innovation", so why did he vote "to hold a federal statute forbidding the burning of the American flag unconstitutional"? As Posner writes, "an understanding of free speech that embraces flag burning is exceedingly unoriginalist. It is the product of freewheeling Supreme Court decisions within the last century." Here's an op-ed by Erwin Chemerinsky titled "Justice Scalia: Why he's a bad influence" which starts "Justice Antonin Scalia is setting a terrible example for young lawyers. Ignore, for now, his jurisprudence, his famously strict originalism; it's his tone that's the problem." Other parts include "Such mockery does not amount to a legal argument; it's nothing more than an attack on the author's writing technique. A litigator who compared an opponent's brief to a fortune cookie likely would be, and should be, sanctioned by the court." and "Scalia's browbeating is childish, even vain; like a harshly negative book critic, he revels in his own turns of phrase. And his attitude, just like his legal theory, affects the profession as a whole." I feel more well-informed by both pieces.